Winter is Coming

We are now almost halfway through the month of December, and the year 2021 is coming to a close. I have seen some funny memes and admonitions that no one is allowed to claim 2022 as "their year." We should all creep in quietly, be respectful, and don't touch anything. Maybe, just maybe, global events and uncertainties will turn the corner. No one is allowed to breath any sighs of relief until 2023, at the soonest.

Speaking as a past pandemic planner (google my full name if you want to verify; there's even a live webinar I travelled to SUNY Albany to be a guest upon in 2008 or 09), with nearly two years of observations of a modern pandemic, I think we're going to see a lot more of the same as we did in 2021. New variants will continue to emerge. The variants will receive names and press. People who are not vaccinated or have sufficient antibodies from a previous infection will get more sick and die at higher rates than the vaccinated population. One very interesting scientific discovery we learned from the Delta variant is that vaccinated people, like me, can have the coronavirus in their upper respiratory passage (mouth and nasal cavities), which can reproduce to a small extent and be spread back out into the environment (through coughs, sneezing, and possibly just normal breathing). This phenomenon is that a person can be infectious without being infected. We never considered that when I was a pandemic planner.

One of the widely accepted presumptions of pre 2010 pandemic planning was that after identification of a novel virus (we assumed it would be influenza, not a coronavirus), it would take 12-18 months for an effective vaccine to be widely available. The WHO declared the pandemic in March 2020 and I received my first dose of the Moderna vaccine in April 2021, so that was right on schedule. What we did not consider, what would have been the furthest thing from our minds in 2010 was that there would be a free, readily available, highly effective vaccine and nearly half of the developed world would say, "No thank you," to receiving that vaccine. The pandemic planning world I was part of from 2006-2010 was composed primarily of scientists, doctors, public health experts, and a few detail oriented odd ball attorneys drawn to the emergency preparedness field (I wasn't the only one!). I can't recall anyone I worked with regularly that didn't have at least one advanced degree beyond four years of college. I am unaware of any person at that time that was plugged into homeopathic and alternative medicine. We made an enormous error by not bringing in people from outside the ivory tower. We had a multilayer approach to pandemic planning, assuming that various social distancing practices would be necessary until a vaccine was widely available. Had we known that such a huge percentage OF THE WORLD would not want to receive the vaccine, I think we could have planned more intense efforts towards non-medical interventions to slow viral transmission.

I am still very interested in the direction that pandemic planning will take when we move past coronavirus, if we move past it. I believe that vaccine developments will keep pace with mutations and viral shift, so that the impact upon a vaccinated population will continue to be minimal compared to unvaccinated counterparts. Thus far, studies show that people who are fully vaccinated have more and better antibodies than people with exposure only through actual illness.

I had a positive coronavirus test in September 2020, which I possibly caught at the facility I travel to for dog training. I was indoors for a puppy obedience class, and wore a mask, but the majority of people in the building did not wear masks. Andy insisted that I get tested for coronavirus, and a few days later I received a positive result. I had very few symptoms, so mild that I would never have thought I was infected with covid-19 had I not known otherwise. I never had a fever, never lost my sense of smell or taste, never had any of the most common symptoms. I had night chills a day after the class, and I had a mildly upset stomach. I isolated in what is now the pink bird room, on a cozy air mattress. I had begun to remodel the room and it was a hot mess. The weather was pleasant so we turned off the AC, had windows open for circulation, and Andy quarantined in his office. After 10 days from receiving my positive test result, we reunited. I had the Vallhunds with me during isolation, along with Bridget. Andy had Lenka, our Norwegian Elkhound. He was tested twice and both tests were negative for coronavirus. Since that time, he was tested twice more, and has yet to have a positive test.

Since getting vaccinated earlier this year, and a booster in October, I have mostly resumed my normal activities. Granted, I am a social introvert, so my outings are far fewer and further apart than what extroverts consider normal. I attended all the dog shows I wanted to this year, enough for Celine and Dove to both finish their AKC championships. I began conformation classes with Prins the puppy, who then picked up a major win at eight months old, earning three points in August. That win was a wonderful, unexpected surprise. My last dog show of 2021 was in early September, over Labor Day weekend. I chose that show because I was thoroughly exhausted and the academic school year was well underway. Travelling to shows while Andy is teaching on campus puts too much stress on both of us, and there is nothing left to win that can't wait until next year.

We passed another post-covid-world milestone this past week, and I included a few pictures of us from that evening. Andy and I went out to eat dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant in Iowa City, Oyama. It was our first dinner out together since late 2019. We are both good cooks and get lazy around dinnertime, usually preferring to stay home rather than travel 30-60 minutes to a restaurant we enjoy. That Wednesday was particularly taxing though. Andy had finished building a pen in the garage for our geese to go in at night. We lost a goose to a rogue coyote the previous week, and Andy had met with a professional trapper that morning. The trapper gave us a list of security measures to adopt, and the biggest one was to keep the geese indoors at night, every night. I had already ordered additional lighting, and spent the past two days building a chute for the geese from the pond pasture to their pen in the garage. Our geese are unusually tame, and adapted quickly to the new routine. They are used to an evening treat of cracked corn, and now look forward to enjoying their meal indoors. Last night, they were waiting for me to open the door of the garage at dusk. They are very smart animals.

Back to our milestone on Thursday, our dinner out at Oyama. We both dressed up, in the sense that we wore clothing a little too nice for daily farm chores. We had a huge meal and ordered all of our favorite items. We had multiple appetizers, a bottle of plum wine, three different sushi rolls, green tea, and dessert. Andy ordered a fried banana for his dessert, and it was artfully presented as a caterpillar. As a pair of humans we are evolving to live in a world where the continued presence of a deadly novel virus is guaranteed for at least the foreseeable future. The restaurant was mostly empty, with diners at three other tables. Before the pandemic, every table would be full at dinner, nearly every night of the week. The bell on the door rang every few minutes for a patron that hastily entered to retrieve their meal for take out. It may be a few months before we take the chance of dining in again, as now the Omicron variant has been detected in Iowa and we're watching to see what havoc that wreaks upon the population.